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Lost, season 3
You know, Lost and the DVD format are really made for each other, something that occurs to me each time I watch a full season. I had seen individual episodes of the later half of the third season in real time, but had waited until the DVDs came out for the entire season, and as with the previous ones, I'm glad I did. In real time, the heavy emphasis on Jack and on Jack-Kate-Sawyer as prisoners of the Others during the first half would have driven me mad. On DVD, not only was this not the case but it clicked, one episode after the other, I could see where the stories were going, and it worked very well. Also, since I had already seen the finale, I could admire the clever foreshadowing of several elements for several characters, and the organic whole.
All in all, this was the season of the Others. With the question being, of course, what "other" and "us" really means.
Lost has a great wacky black sense of humor sometimes, and the standout moments for me this season were the "Downtown" sequences, Roger the Work Man (whose identity we later discover) in Tricia Tanaka is dead and the end of Exposé. Given that season 2 ended with the big shockers of Michael and Walt departing after Michael's deal with the Others, Jack, Kate and Sawyer captured and Locke resolving his crisis of faith in the way Locke resolves these things, i.e. by blowing something up, only in this case with near-apocalypstic consequences, to start the next season with a feel good song to which we see a suburban pastorel, a book club, getting interrupted by a plane crashing and we realise these almost Stepfordian normal people are actually the Others and we're witnessing the event starting the pilot from their pov was inspired. It's also a good introduction for Juliet, who together with Ben is the character most propelling the action forward during the season. Juliet's choice of "Downtown" and her brittle cajoling herself into happy smiles in front of the mirror is as characteristic of her as Ben's unblinking stare is of him.
Looking back at Juliet's two flashback episodes and her behaviour throughout the season, you see it as entirely consistent, because thankfully, Juliet doesn't switch sides because of Jack's manly charms. She wants off the island from the get go, and is prepared to do whatever it takes to achieve that aim. The whole reason why she's on the island to begin with is because of that willingness to begin with, in this case, sign on to a dubious project despite clear warning signs, going as far as allowing strangers to tranquilize her into unconsciousness if that gave her what she wanted. Juliet isn't an innocent who somehow ended up becoming an Other; she literary and voluntarily drank the cool-aid, in one go. It's also worth noting that despite her intelligence, skills and abilty to defend herself when necessary she always falls into a pattern of letting someone else dominate her - but then uses that person in turn. She's unable to extradite herself from her working situation with her ex-husband, and while her wish he should be hit by a bus presumably isn't spoken with an awareness this could become real, it's still said in a scene where she clearly hopes the people who want to hire her will be able to do something; in any case, she signs on to work with them after her ex-husband's ominous death. Ben's way of keeping her on the island beyond her initial few months isn't exactly the world's most credible claim (that her sister's cancer returned but that the island can cure it, long-distance); it does, however, provide an excuse. When she's desperate to leave, years later, and definitely seeing through all of Ben's excuses, she still makes no attempt to kill him on her own (and this would be easy for her; she's a doctor, she could just mix something in his food, for starters), she tries to make Jack kill him instead. After the submarine explodes and leaving the island via means provided by Ben is clearly out, she uses the double agent gig to go with Jack, and she does tell him the truth eventually, but it also looks as if he's being moved in the position of her ex-husband and Ben as the one who makes the big decisions for her. It's an interesting neurotic mixture.
Jack, of course, was my least liked character on Lost, but I must say, the season finale seems to have changed my attitude towards him because I found most of his scenes during the first half of the season not only un-boring but good storytelling. One difference is that previously, I assumed the narrative wanted us to see Jack as simply wonderful, with his flaw being the classic heroic flaw-that-isn't, i.e. the doctor who is too concerned with saving other people to organize his personal life. Which doesn't seem to be the case. The first flashbacks of season 1 show us Jack in full blown obsessive (and selfishly obsessive) mode, as he jealously stalks his ex-wife and gets so consumed by this jealousy and unability to accept the marriage is over, to move on, that he eventually attacks his father and thus pushes that barely recovering alcoholic into a new downward spiral. There is a direct link from this side of Jack's to the complete wreck he is in the flash forward in the season finale, where the problem of clinging to the past and inability to cope with the present is multiplied to the nth degree. The fact he's unable to have a non-offbrushing conversation with Kate after seeing she had sex with Sawyer - despite the fact he cares about both of them, and that Kate was not in a romantic relationship with him - and indeed to talk to anyone at the camp once he's back, but expects them to trust him and follow his lead, fits into this pattern as well. Meanwhile, the one person he becomes closer to during the course of the season, Juliet, is one of the people he is obsessed with getting revenge on ever since season 2, and in retrospect, it's both ironic and fitting that the most crucial question regarding Jack is posed to him by the Others' leader, Ben: "What do you actually want to go back to?" (More about this later, as Jack isn't able to answer it.)
(I suspect that will be the question for most of the other characters as well next season.)
Desmond, who isn't a member of the original Castaways or the Others, at one point observes that by now, the Castaways have actually killed more Others than the other way around. I'm not keeping score, but I guess the scriptwriters are, so presumably that's true. Of course, as Charlie immediately replies, the Others "started it". Lost is a show in which violence doesn't feel gratitious because we're shown the result of violence. By season 3, the plane crash survivors have become so hardened that quite a lot of the characters suggest torture via Sayid as a normal means of interrogation and problem solving. Sayid, to his credit, has noticed the effect torturing again had on him last season and refuses to do it anymore. In the one Sayid flashback story, we are witness to a twist on the play Death and the Maiden and a moment of grace, as Sayid is faced for a former victim. At first, it seems to follow the pattern of violence and counter violence as her husband takes him prisoner and wants him to admit what he did, but then the woman herself takes charge, and not via torturing Sayid in turn; she stops the spiral of violence. But she wants him to acknowledge their past by remembering, and Sayid goes through a confession and repentance process.
Confession and repentance is something played out - or not - in different variations. Mr. Eko explicitly refuses to follow the ritual, because, as he says, he cannot repent having killed a man to protect his brother as a boy, which started his career of violence. In his flashback, we see that his reprieve from this life, the twist that had him mistaken for a priest, did not immediately result in a Saulus/Paulus change, as Eko kills again, but as signfiicant is his exchange with what he thinks is his brother's ghost, where he refuses to repent. The chilling last sentence of the "ghost" - "you speak to me as if I were your brother" - seems to be a big hint that all the various apparitions of the dealy departed spotted over the seasons by various characters are manifestations of the island itself. (More about this in a moment, when I get to Locke.) After hearing this, the confused and wounded Eko is hunted and attacked by the smoke monster, and the violent result of this attack kills him. Why, narratively speaking, does Eko die, after having build up as an important character in the last season? IMO because, and this is true from a Watsonian and Doylist perspective at the same time, because the island didn't need him anymore. Eko took over the shaman/true believer role when Locke had his crisis of faith during the second season, but the finale events, in no small part due to Eko, had the result of letting Locke find his faith again, and with that, Eko's usefulness is fulfilled as far as the island is concerned, especially since Eko, as opposed to Locke, is no longer approachable through the past; he has already made peace with it. So Eko dies. Which on the one hand is a pity, since he was a likeable and captivating character, but on the other does make narrative sense.
Finding a seemingly scientific and human-made technological explanation behind the mystery he had pursued through season 1 had disappointed and gradually embittered Locke through season 2, until he put it to the test by not pressing the button in the s2 finale. When the result was a near apocalypse so instant and overwhelming that it had to be a force of nature, nothing human, we find Locke's access to his faith returned as season 3 opens. He's mute at first, which fits the strange pattern of healing, withdrawal, punishment and reward the island and Locke are interlocked in; but as he instantly tries to commune with the island and then does what he is told to do, speech and strength is returned. Like Eko, Locke sees a dead person whose death is his fault though he did not literary kill said person: Boone. And here, it's even clearer that we're not dealing with a genuine ghost as Boone's reassuring words to Locke - that Locke doesn't need to feel guilty anymore, as Boone's death was the sacrifice the island demanded - and the double commandment of "clean up your own mess" and "find Eko" aren't something Boone would say. In the season finale, we get a parallel scene when Locke sees Walt - which doesn't necessarily mean Walt is dead, as Walt was seen when alive by several other characters, and has shown to have odd abilities - who tells him "you have work to do". We also have a visual link of Locke lying on the ground followed by rebirth from the start of season 1 onwards, and it's usually combined with mystic/religious connotations. In season 2, he sees literal signs on the wall this way. In the season 3 opener, he is called back to his faith; in the finale, he is brought back from the dead in a double manner, since he's lying bleeding in a mass grave when the island comes through for him with another miracle and another communication via apparations.
Carrying out these commandments each time has a life-and-death result. At the start of the season, Locke is able to find and save Eko; but Eko later dies anyway, and through the island, too. At the end of the season, the "work" he has to do starts with killing another human being for the first time unambigiously, directly and through his own hands - but we've learned just before that the woman in question is not who she appeared to be, and that Ben, who claims she and the people she represents mean death to everyone on this island, might actually have been telling the truth, which means Locke's action might have been an attempt to save everyone. Though of course one motive is what is always there with John Locke - he really does not want to leave this island. In The Man from Tallahasee, Ben suggests two motives for this, the obvious one which the audience has guessed from season 1, i.e. that Locke believes that if he ever leaves the island, he'll be crippled again, and a second one, that Locke sees the island as a refuge from his old life in general and his father in particular, that he sees the island as the one place where he would never encounter his father again. Up to this point, we saw that each of Locke's encounters with his father resulted in him losing something of himself, both physically - the kidney, for starters - and emotionally - his belief in parental love, his relationship with Helen - and yet the hope that his father would eventually return at least some of his feelings never quite died. In The Man from Tallahasee it all culminates in the flashback that has Locke literally shattered to pieces by his father.
Between Kate's step- and-actual-father, the Doctors Shephard, Claire and Shephard Senior, Ben and his father, Ben and Alex, Sawyer's parents etc. Lost has more than its share of dysfunctional father-child relationships, but Locke and Anthony Cooper, aka Tom Sawyer, really take the crown. Cooper basically is Kronos, both consuming his own child and trying to kill it. But Locke is unable to commit the reciprocal act of patricide himself. When challenged to do so by Ben, he's also offered an out by Richard Halpert via the crucial information about Sawyer, aka James Ford, i.e. that his father and the man who conned Sawyer's mother is one and the same. The Brig, the episode in which Locke, no pun intended, locks up Sawyer with his father, is bursting with ambiguity because it's impossible to say what for any of the characters would have been the right choice. Also, Cooper brings up a new way for the show to mess with viewers' minds as he tells both Locke and Sawyer that the only sensible explanation for his own presence on the island and all these meetings is that they are, in fact, all dead and in hell. Meanwhile, in another plot thread, we have Naomi telling Hurley & Co. that their air plane was found a good while ago, complete with dead passengers, that they are all dead.
(Sidenote: no, I don't think they are in hell. For starters, baby Aaron is in anyone's theological definition free of sin and hence would not be there, though the whole impossibility for women to conceive and give birth on the island is interesting when viewed in this light.)
Be that as it may, the conviction of being dead already allows Cooper to be unrepentant and dastardly towards both people whose lives he has ruined, when presumably otherwise he'd have tried to con them one last time in order to survive, and so the question of repentance and forgiveness when faced with same never comes up. What does come up is the question of murder. Locke finds himself unable to kill his father, still, but he is capable of plotting his death through other means. He doesn't have to. He could become like Rousseau, a wanderer on the island not belonging to any of the camps, he could return to the Castaways. As for his father, he could simply turn his back on him. But Ben, though acting in anything but Locke's interest, is right in one regard: Locke did see the island as a haven from his past, and now it's been compromised, and he'll never stop expecting his father to show up as long as the man is alive. As for Sawyer, Sawyer is both in a very different and similar place emotionally. Sawyer has been integrating himself with the community more and more after returning from captivity in season 3, having abandoned his pride in being loathed, he has formed ties, has accepted responsibilities; the island has definitely become the place where Sawyer finally grew up. A safe haven from his past as well. But the confrontation with the man he named himself after does not have the result it would have in a classic hero's journey, i.e. that the newly matured Sawyer is able to overcome his childhood trauma. When faced with the remorseless spectre of his past turned flesh, he loses it and does kill him. There is a lot of visual symbolism going around - Sawyer strangles Cooper/Sawyer the First with old slave chains, Locke carries his father's dead body on his back. Being chained to the past, carrying it with you despite thinking it is dead. They both had the choice not to do it, but they both did it. And it has consequences.
In the season 2 episodes which paired Locke with the then soi-dissant "Henry Gale", I already thought their scenes had a particular electricity. In s3, where the former Gale as Ben is one of the main characters and meets Locke again from mid-season onwards, this became even more apparant. Ben is as much a believer in the island as Locke is (and seems to think the island is cheating on him with Locke), and they both are frequently associated with games; they both have the lonely childhood, lousy father and embracing of a strange community in an attempt to belong over the one they come from. (See also: Locke's stint with the weed-growing hippies and his fascination with the Others, Ben's choice of the Others over the Dharma initiative.) But while Locke isn't exactly the most stable of people, Ben is a full-fledged sociopath. Locke at his most selfish is willing to let everyone else be stuck on the island so he doesn't have to leave it, but he also doesn't want to see the Castaways harmed, either, hence his warning to Sawyer of Ben's intentions regarding the pregnant women and giving Sawyer proof, for example. Ben started his time with the Others by participating in and perhaps even co-organizing the murder of the entire community he grew up with, sees no other solution for keeping loyal followers permanently shut up than to order the death of same, and solves an understandable wish of not seeing his daughter pregnant not by making sure the girl uses reliable contraception but by putting her boyfriend in a cage. Still, they're connected in a way that Ben and Jack, who is his other rival and opposite number, are not. (Between Ben's "we have two giant hamsters in the basement to give us electricity" and Locke's "then I hope you can imagine yourself a new submarine", they also have a very nice snark going on in their dialogues.) In a way, they strike one as two different variation of priest in their religious approach to the island; Ben as the rationalizing Thomas Aquinas to Locke's mystical St. Francis, if you will. And yet it's Ben who talks calmly to a seemingly empty chair and sees someone in it, and Locke who still has enough doubts to initially see nothing until he hears a voice.
The matter of Jacob: watching the episode ("The Man behind the Curtain") with the audio commentary, it was great to see that the writers pointed to the same things the fans noticed after the initial broadcast - the barrier Ben and Locke cross on their way, which is drawn attention to when Locke picks some of the substance up, which looks like dust, for example. Together with the "help me" later, it would seem that "Jacob" is in some way contained by Ben; we all know our horror stories and what a magic circle looks like. The writers also coyly said they refuse to say who plays Jacob in the one brief flash we see of him, which you have to stop the DVD for because it's over so quickly, but that they've seen the theories by the fans about it being either Terry O'Quinn in a wig, or Michael Emerson, or "Christian Shephard". Writing of the Christian Shephard thing as a red herring - Jack's father: definitely dead, imo - I'm taking that as a hint it's either of the two, and the close-up to a blue eye we see, which is Jacob's eye as confirmed by the writers, indicates that as well. (Both Locke and Ben having blue eyes.) So, who or what is Jacob? The personification of whatever force makes the island what it is, which always takes the form of the human being the island is most closely connected to?
The big stunner of the season finale was the flash foward, but I think we'll also get more flashbacks, because the writers said in the audio commentary in question that several elements of Ben's backstory were still missing and would be revealed, to wit: what became of Annie, and what prompted "the Purge", i.e. the wholesale slaughter of all members of the Dharma Initiative except for Ben who participated in it. To which I would add a question they didn't name, but which I think is important: who is financing the Others now? Is it still whoever originally financed the Dharma Initiative, with the people in question successfully fooled by Ben & Co. in believing their experiment is continuing? Because someone is clearly paying for the expensive recruitment process we see demonstrated in Juliet's story.
Of course, we already know that there is yet another player lurking in the wings, to wit, whoever sent Naomi, the people Ben is afraid of and the island clearly doesn't want around, since Locke was supposed to stop Naomi from contacting them. And presumably said player has also something to do with Jack being an utter mess in the future/present (2007). The flash forward is as effective the second time around when you watch the episode knowing that the Jack in Los Angeles scenes aren't flashbacks, by the way; as with an Agatha Christie mystery, there is a sense of fairplay as the clues are there. (The big mislead for a first time viewer are the two mentions of Jack's father in the present tense, but both are by Jack himself, and he's not compos mentis, plus in the second case after more medication. No other person talks of the older Shephard.) My guesses as to the big questions the flash forward poses haven't changed since the last time I watched:
1): Who is in the coffin? Has to be either Locke or Ben, since Kate wouldn't have asked "why would I go to his funeral?" about Sawyer, and there is the fact no one came to said funeral. I'm favouring Ben, because surely at least Hurley would have come for Locke, but it really has to be either of the island believers, since Jack connects the dead person to the island and what he sees now as his big mistake.
2): Why is Jack such a complete wreck? As mentioned before, the traits that lead to this state are shown to be there before, but here the end result is extreme nonetheless. Jack telling Kate that every time he flies, he hopes the plane crashes, no matter what that means for all the other passengers, is in its full implication truly outdoing Locke at his most island-obsessive. The almost inevitable conclusion is that the contact Jack makes at the end of the season really leads to terrible consequences. On the other hand, everyone refers to Jack as "the hero of flight etc.", which I doubt would be the case if everyone but himself, Kate and the person in the coffin had gotten killed by whoever he has made contact with. So something else must have happened.
3) : If Naomi was not lying about the general belief that everyone on the flight died, and the reason for it, why is that and what did happen? Even a massive conspiracy can't come up with a whole alternate plane complete with hundreds of dead bodies out of the blue. Of course, Naomi could have been lying about this, too, but Cooper/Sawyer-the-older seems quite firm in his conviction Locke is dead, and it would make sense if he was so sure because he spotted Locke's name in an article about the plane crash listing all the passenger dead. Cooper's explanation - that the island is the afterlife - doesn't work given Jack and Kate evidentally are alive in Los Angeles - but still, it's one of the biggest questions for the new season.
Scattered observations:
- Charlie's trajectory to death through the season is another clear defined arc, and they didn't chicken out of it at the end. Charlie as a character always switched between endearing and annoying to me, and his affection for Claire and the baby could have darker obsessive tones in s2, but in s3 he had resolved his main issues, and his big episode, Greatest Hits, is impossible to watch with a dry eye. He certainly got a far better death than poor Shannon or Ana Lucia.
- Sun and Jin continue to be the married couple more interesting than most lovers on tv, and the way their love for each other also is a weapon used by others and themselves to hurt is amazing. This was the season where we saw more of Sun's steel and also darker side, in her dealings with her father and Jin's mother.
- Jin's father, otoh, is the only flashback father who unambiguously is a great guy, sweet and selfless. Figures he'd be the one denied by his son.
- I heard a lot of people hate Exposé, but I thought it was a witty meta episode; then again, I like it when shows do episodes where our regulars are shown from outsider povs, and the way Nikki and Paolo managed to be present at crucial points of the Lost saga while always missing out of using those because of their selfishness until it led them to their graves was ... well, like I said, I have a thing for black humor. It was the good crack.
- did I mention I loved the use of Downtown?
All in all, this was the season of the Others. With the question being, of course, what "other" and "us" really means.
Lost has a great wacky black sense of humor sometimes, and the standout moments for me this season were the "Downtown" sequences, Roger the Work Man (whose identity we later discover) in Tricia Tanaka is dead and the end of Exposé. Given that season 2 ended with the big shockers of Michael and Walt departing after Michael's deal with the Others, Jack, Kate and Sawyer captured and Locke resolving his crisis of faith in the way Locke resolves these things, i.e. by blowing something up, only in this case with near-apocalypstic consequences, to start the next season with a feel good song to which we see a suburban pastorel, a book club, getting interrupted by a plane crashing and we realise these almost Stepfordian normal people are actually the Others and we're witnessing the event starting the pilot from their pov was inspired. It's also a good introduction for Juliet, who together with Ben is the character most propelling the action forward during the season. Juliet's choice of "Downtown" and her brittle cajoling herself into happy smiles in front of the mirror is as characteristic of her as Ben's unblinking stare is of him.
Looking back at Juliet's two flashback episodes and her behaviour throughout the season, you see it as entirely consistent, because thankfully, Juliet doesn't switch sides because of Jack's manly charms. She wants off the island from the get go, and is prepared to do whatever it takes to achieve that aim. The whole reason why she's on the island to begin with is because of that willingness to begin with, in this case, sign on to a dubious project despite clear warning signs, going as far as allowing strangers to tranquilize her into unconsciousness if that gave her what she wanted. Juliet isn't an innocent who somehow ended up becoming an Other; she literary and voluntarily drank the cool-aid, in one go. It's also worth noting that despite her intelligence, skills and abilty to defend herself when necessary she always falls into a pattern of letting someone else dominate her - but then uses that person in turn. She's unable to extradite herself from her working situation with her ex-husband, and while her wish he should be hit by a bus presumably isn't spoken with an awareness this could become real, it's still said in a scene where she clearly hopes the people who want to hire her will be able to do something; in any case, she signs on to work with them after her ex-husband's ominous death. Ben's way of keeping her on the island beyond her initial few months isn't exactly the world's most credible claim (that her sister's cancer returned but that the island can cure it, long-distance); it does, however, provide an excuse. When she's desperate to leave, years later, and definitely seeing through all of Ben's excuses, she still makes no attempt to kill him on her own (and this would be easy for her; she's a doctor, she could just mix something in his food, for starters), she tries to make Jack kill him instead. After the submarine explodes and leaving the island via means provided by Ben is clearly out, she uses the double agent gig to go with Jack, and she does tell him the truth eventually, but it also looks as if he's being moved in the position of her ex-husband and Ben as the one who makes the big decisions for her. It's an interesting neurotic mixture.
Jack, of course, was my least liked character on Lost, but I must say, the season finale seems to have changed my attitude towards him because I found most of his scenes during the first half of the season not only un-boring but good storytelling. One difference is that previously, I assumed the narrative wanted us to see Jack as simply wonderful, with his flaw being the classic heroic flaw-that-isn't, i.e. the doctor who is too concerned with saving other people to organize his personal life. Which doesn't seem to be the case. The first flashbacks of season 1 show us Jack in full blown obsessive (and selfishly obsessive) mode, as he jealously stalks his ex-wife and gets so consumed by this jealousy and unability to accept the marriage is over, to move on, that he eventually attacks his father and thus pushes that barely recovering alcoholic into a new downward spiral. There is a direct link from this side of Jack's to the complete wreck he is in the flash forward in the season finale, where the problem of clinging to the past and inability to cope with the present is multiplied to the nth degree. The fact he's unable to have a non-offbrushing conversation with Kate after seeing she had sex with Sawyer - despite the fact he cares about both of them, and that Kate was not in a romantic relationship with him - and indeed to talk to anyone at the camp once he's back, but expects them to trust him and follow his lead, fits into this pattern as well. Meanwhile, the one person he becomes closer to during the course of the season, Juliet, is one of the people he is obsessed with getting revenge on ever since season 2, and in retrospect, it's both ironic and fitting that the most crucial question regarding Jack is posed to him by the Others' leader, Ben: "What do you actually want to go back to?" (More about this later, as Jack isn't able to answer it.)
(I suspect that will be the question for most of the other characters as well next season.)
Desmond, who isn't a member of the original Castaways or the Others, at one point observes that by now, the Castaways have actually killed more Others than the other way around. I'm not keeping score, but I guess the scriptwriters are, so presumably that's true. Of course, as Charlie immediately replies, the Others "started it". Lost is a show in which violence doesn't feel gratitious because we're shown the result of violence. By season 3, the plane crash survivors have become so hardened that quite a lot of the characters suggest torture via Sayid as a normal means of interrogation and problem solving. Sayid, to his credit, has noticed the effect torturing again had on him last season and refuses to do it anymore. In the one Sayid flashback story, we are witness to a twist on the play Death and the Maiden and a moment of grace, as Sayid is faced for a former victim. At first, it seems to follow the pattern of violence and counter violence as her husband takes him prisoner and wants him to admit what he did, but then the woman herself takes charge, and not via torturing Sayid in turn; she stops the spiral of violence. But she wants him to acknowledge their past by remembering, and Sayid goes through a confession and repentance process.
Confession and repentance is something played out - or not - in different variations. Mr. Eko explicitly refuses to follow the ritual, because, as he says, he cannot repent having killed a man to protect his brother as a boy, which started his career of violence. In his flashback, we see that his reprieve from this life, the twist that had him mistaken for a priest, did not immediately result in a Saulus/Paulus change, as Eko kills again, but as signfiicant is his exchange with what he thinks is his brother's ghost, where he refuses to repent. The chilling last sentence of the "ghost" - "you speak to me as if I were your brother" - seems to be a big hint that all the various apparitions of the dealy departed spotted over the seasons by various characters are manifestations of the island itself. (More about this in a moment, when I get to Locke.) After hearing this, the confused and wounded Eko is hunted and attacked by the smoke monster, and the violent result of this attack kills him. Why, narratively speaking, does Eko die, after having build up as an important character in the last season? IMO because, and this is true from a Watsonian and Doylist perspective at the same time, because the island didn't need him anymore. Eko took over the shaman/true believer role when Locke had his crisis of faith during the second season, but the finale events, in no small part due to Eko, had the result of letting Locke find his faith again, and with that, Eko's usefulness is fulfilled as far as the island is concerned, especially since Eko, as opposed to Locke, is no longer approachable through the past; he has already made peace with it. So Eko dies. Which on the one hand is a pity, since he was a likeable and captivating character, but on the other does make narrative sense.
Finding a seemingly scientific and human-made technological explanation behind the mystery he had pursued through season 1 had disappointed and gradually embittered Locke through season 2, until he put it to the test by not pressing the button in the s2 finale. When the result was a near apocalypse so instant and overwhelming that it had to be a force of nature, nothing human, we find Locke's access to his faith returned as season 3 opens. He's mute at first, which fits the strange pattern of healing, withdrawal, punishment and reward the island and Locke are interlocked in; but as he instantly tries to commune with the island and then does what he is told to do, speech and strength is returned. Like Eko, Locke sees a dead person whose death is his fault though he did not literary kill said person: Boone. And here, it's even clearer that we're not dealing with a genuine ghost as Boone's reassuring words to Locke - that Locke doesn't need to feel guilty anymore, as Boone's death was the sacrifice the island demanded - and the double commandment of "clean up your own mess" and "find Eko" aren't something Boone would say. In the season finale, we get a parallel scene when Locke sees Walt - which doesn't necessarily mean Walt is dead, as Walt was seen when alive by several other characters, and has shown to have odd abilities - who tells him "you have work to do". We also have a visual link of Locke lying on the ground followed by rebirth from the start of season 1 onwards, and it's usually combined with mystic/religious connotations. In season 2, he sees literal signs on the wall this way. In the season 3 opener, he is called back to his faith; in the finale, he is brought back from the dead in a double manner, since he's lying bleeding in a mass grave when the island comes through for him with another miracle and another communication via apparations.
Carrying out these commandments each time has a life-and-death result. At the start of the season, Locke is able to find and save Eko; but Eko later dies anyway, and through the island, too. At the end of the season, the "work" he has to do starts with killing another human being for the first time unambigiously, directly and through his own hands - but we've learned just before that the woman in question is not who she appeared to be, and that Ben, who claims she and the people she represents mean death to everyone on this island, might actually have been telling the truth, which means Locke's action might have been an attempt to save everyone. Though of course one motive is what is always there with John Locke - he really does not want to leave this island. In The Man from Tallahasee, Ben suggests two motives for this, the obvious one which the audience has guessed from season 1, i.e. that Locke believes that if he ever leaves the island, he'll be crippled again, and a second one, that Locke sees the island as a refuge from his old life in general and his father in particular, that he sees the island as the one place where he would never encounter his father again. Up to this point, we saw that each of Locke's encounters with his father resulted in him losing something of himself, both physically - the kidney, for starters - and emotionally - his belief in parental love, his relationship with Helen - and yet the hope that his father would eventually return at least some of his feelings never quite died. In The Man from Tallahasee it all culminates in the flashback that has Locke literally shattered to pieces by his father.
Between Kate's step- and-actual-father, the Doctors Shephard, Claire and Shephard Senior, Ben and his father, Ben and Alex, Sawyer's parents etc. Lost has more than its share of dysfunctional father-child relationships, but Locke and Anthony Cooper, aka Tom Sawyer, really take the crown. Cooper basically is Kronos, both consuming his own child and trying to kill it. But Locke is unable to commit the reciprocal act of patricide himself. When challenged to do so by Ben, he's also offered an out by Richard Halpert via the crucial information about Sawyer, aka James Ford, i.e. that his father and the man who conned Sawyer's mother is one and the same. The Brig, the episode in which Locke, no pun intended, locks up Sawyer with his father, is bursting with ambiguity because it's impossible to say what for any of the characters would have been the right choice. Also, Cooper brings up a new way for the show to mess with viewers' minds as he tells both Locke and Sawyer that the only sensible explanation for his own presence on the island and all these meetings is that they are, in fact, all dead and in hell. Meanwhile, in another plot thread, we have Naomi telling Hurley & Co. that their air plane was found a good while ago, complete with dead passengers, that they are all dead.
(Sidenote: no, I don't think they are in hell. For starters, baby Aaron is in anyone's theological definition free of sin and hence would not be there, though the whole impossibility for women to conceive and give birth on the island is interesting when viewed in this light.)
Be that as it may, the conviction of being dead already allows Cooper to be unrepentant and dastardly towards both people whose lives he has ruined, when presumably otherwise he'd have tried to con them one last time in order to survive, and so the question of repentance and forgiveness when faced with same never comes up. What does come up is the question of murder. Locke finds himself unable to kill his father, still, but he is capable of plotting his death through other means. He doesn't have to. He could become like Rousseau, a wanderer on the island not belonging to any of the camps, he could return to the Castaways. As for his father, he could simply turn his back on him. But Ben, though acting in anything but Locke's interest, is right in one regard: Locke did see the island as a haven from his past, and now it's been compromised, and he'll never stop expecting his father to show up as long as the man is alive. As for Sawyer, Sawyer is both in a very different and similar place emotionally. Sawyer has been integrating himself with the community more and more after returning from captivity in season 3, having abandoned his pride in being loathed, he has formed ties, has accepted responsibilities; the island has definitely become the place where Sawyer finally grew up. A safe haven from his past as well. But the confrontation with the man he named himself after does not have the result it would have in a classic hero's journey, i.e. that the newly matured Sawyer is able to overcome his childhood trauma. When faced with the remorseless spectre of his past turned flesh, he loses it and does kill him. There is a lot of visual symbolism going around - Sawyer strangles Cooper/Sawyer the First with old slave chains, Locke carries his father's dead body on his back. Being chained to the past, carrying it with you despite thinking it is dead. They both had the choice not to do it, but they both did it. And it has consequences.
In the season 2 episodes which paired Locke with the then soi-dissant "Henry Gale", I already thought their scenes had a particular electricity. In s3, where the former Gale as Ben is one of the main characters and meets Locke again from mid-season onwards, this became even more apparant. Ben is as much a believer in the island as Locke is (and seems to think the island is cheating on him with Locke), and they both are frequently associated with games; they both have the lonely childhood, lousy father and embracing of a strange community in an attempt to belong over the one they come from. (See also: Locke's stint with the weed-growing hippies and his fascination with the Others, Ben's choice of the Others over the Dharma initiative.) But while Locke isn't exactly the most stable of people, Ben is a full-fledged sociopath. Locke at his most selfish is willing to let everyone else be stuck on the island so he doesn't have to leave it, but he also doesn't want to see the Castaways harmed, either, hence his warning to Sawyer of Ben's intentions regarding the pregnant women and giving Sawyer proof, for example. Ben started his time with the Others by participating in and perhaps even co-organizing the murder of the entire community he grew up with, sees no other solution for keeping loyal followers permanently shut up than to order the death of same, and solves an understandable wish of not seeing his daughter pregnant not by making sure the girl uses reliable contraception but by putting her boyfriend in a cage. Still, they're connected in a way that Ben and Jack, who is his other rival and opposite number, are not. (Between Ben's "we have two giant hamsters in the basement to give us electricity" and Locke's "then I hope you can imagine yourself a new submarine", they also have a very nice snark going on in their dialogues.) In a way, they strike one as two different variation of priest in their religious approach to the island; Ben as the rationalizing Thomas Aquinas to Locke's mystical St. Francis, if you will. And yet it's Ben who talks calmly to a seemingly empty chair and sees someone in it, and Locke who still has enough doubts to initially see nothing until he hears a voice.
The matter of Jacob: watching the episode ("The Man behind the Curtain") with the audio commentary, it was great to see that the writers pointed to the same things the fans noticed after the initial broadcast - the barrier Ben and Locke cross on their way, which is drawn attention to when Locke picks some of the substance up, which looks like dust, for example. Together with the "help me" later, it would seem that "Jacob" is in some way contained by Ben; we all know our horror stories and what a magic circle looks like. The writers also coyly said they refuse to say who plays Jacob in the one brief flash we see of him, which you have to stop the DVD for because it's over so quickly, but that they've seen the theories by the fans about it being either Terry O'Quinn in a wig, or Michael Emerson, or "Christian Shephard". Writing of the Christian Shephard thing as a red herring - Jack's father: definitely dead, imo - I'm taking that as a hint it's either of the two, and the close-up to a blue eye we see, which is Jacob's eye as confirmed by the writers, indicates that as well. (Both Locke and Ben having blue eyes.) So, who or what is Jacob? The personification of whatever force makes the island what it is, which always takes the form of the human being the island is most closely connected to?
The big stunner of the season finale was the flash foward, but I think we'll also get more flashbacks, because the writers said in the audio commentary in question that several elements of Ben's backstory were still missing and would be revealed, to wit: what became of Annie, and what prompted "the Purge", i.e. the wholesale slaughter of all members of the Dharma Initiative except for Ben who participated in it. To which I would add a question they didn't name, but which I think is important: who is financing the Others now? Is it still whoever originally financed the Dharma Initiative, with the people in question successfully fooled by Ben & Co. in believing their experiment is continuing? Because someone is clearly paying for the expensive recruitment process we see demonstrated in Juliet's story.
Of course, we already know that there is yet another player lurking in the wings, to wit, whoever sent Naomi, the people Ben is afraid of and the island clearly doesn't want around, since Locke was supposed to stop Naomi from contacting them. And presumably said player has also something to do with Jack being an utter mess in the future/present (2007). The flash forward is as effective the second time around when you watch the episode knowing that the Jack in Los Angeles scenes aren't flashbacks, by the way; as with an Agatha Christie mystery, there is a sense of fairplay as the clues are there. (The big mislead for a first time viewer are the two mentions of Jack's father in the present tense, but both are by Jack himself, and he's not compos mentis, plus in the second case after more medication. No other person talks of the older Shephard.) My guesses as to the big questions the flash forward poses haven't changed since the last time I watched:
1): Who is in the coffin? Has to be either Locke or Ben, since Kate wouldn't have asked "why would I go to his funeral?" about Sawyer, and there is the fact no one came to said funeral. I'm favouring Ben, because surely at least Hurley would have come for Locke, but it really has to be either of the island believers, since Jack connects the dead person to the island and what he sees now as his big mistake.
2): Why is Jack such a complete wreck? As mentioned before, the traits that lead to this state are shown to be there before, but here the end result is extreme nonetheless. Jack telling Kate that every time he flies, he hopes the plane crashes, no matter what that means for all the other passengers, is in its full implication truly outdoing Locke at his most island-obsessive. The almost inevitable conclusion is that the contact Jack makes at the end of the season really leads to terrible consequences. On the other hand, everyone refers to Jack as "the hero of flight etc.", which I doubt would be the case if everyone but himself, Kate and the person in the coffin had gotten killed by whoever he has made contact with. So something else must have happened.
3) : If Naomi was not lying about the general belief that everyone on the flight died, and the reason for it, why is that and what did happen? Even a massive conspiracy can't come up with a whole alternate plane complete with hundreds of dead bodies out of the blue. Of course, Naomi could have been lying about this, too, but Cooper/Sawyer-the-older seems quite firm in his conviction Locke is dead, and it would make sense if he was so sure because he spotted Locke's name in an article about the plane crash listing all the passenger dead. Cooper's explanation - that the island is the afterlife - doesn't work given Jack and Kate evidentally are alive in Los Angeles - but still, it's one of the biggest questions for the new season.
Scattered observations:
- Charlie's trajectory to death through the season is another clear defined arc, and they didn't chicken out of it at the end. Charlie as a character always switched between endearing and annoying to me, and his affection for Claire and the baby could have darker obsessive tones in s2, but in s3 he had resolved his main issues, and his big episode, Greatest Hits, is impossible to watch with a dry eye. He certainly got a far better death than poor Shannon or Ana Lucia.
- Sun and Jin continue to be the married couple more interesting than most lovers on tv, and the way their love for each other also is a weapon used by others and themselves to hurt is amazing. This was the season where we saw more of Sun's steel and also darker side, in her dealings with her father and Jin's mother.
- Jin's father, otoh, is the only flashback father who unambiguously is a great guy, sweet and selfless. Figures he'd be the one denied by his son.
- I heard a lot of people hate Exposé, but I thought it was a witty meta episode; then again, I like it when shows do episodes where our regulars are shown from outsider povs, and the way Nikki and Paolo managed to be present at crucial points of the Lost saga while always missing out of using those because of their selfishness until it led them to their graves was ... well, like I said, I have a thing for black humor. It was the good crack.
- did I mention I loved the use of Downtown?
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Absolutely! I watched the first two seasons on DVD and the third as it aired, and I found the former experience more satisfying, even if the latter did let me discuss it with people without worrying about spoilers. If the plot isn't advancing much and the characters being focused on aren't the ones you're interested in -- as was the case for a long while at the start of S3 -- it's deeply frustrating to wait an entire week only to be handed more of the same. If you have the next episode right there waiting for you whenever you want it, that effect is a lot smaller.
Also, I agree totally about Jack in the finale, and for pretty much the same reasons. I can't help but feel that there's something a tiny bit wrong about the fact that I like him about a zillion times more in that episode than I ever have before. But he's actually interesting! And it's easier to take him seriously as a character when the show isn't, rather pathetically, attempting to convince me that he's noble and heroic and special. That's it, show! Own your characters' loserness!
Um, I don't have anything to add to the rest of this, except to say that I think it's a smart and interesting analysis, and I don't have any real disagreements with it. :)
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Quite, and I think that's true for any of the seasons. But the cohesiveness of the writing in 3 is really greater than in the earlier two, and that's an additional reasons why I didn't mind the focus on my non-favourites in the early s3 episodes, because watched right after another, you could see how well the build-up worked.
That's it, show! Own your characters' loserness!
*g* In the audio commentary to the first episode of s3, Damon Lindelof says during the Jack flashbacks (the ones I singled out above, about him stalking his (ex-)wife and driving his father back to drink), "High, my name is Jack Shephard and I'm an obsessive psychopath" during a close-up. So yes, I'd say in s3 at least, Jack's not so heroic sides were deliberately highlighted.